welcome! jeremy freese is a professor in sociology at northwestern university. he finds blogging to be a good diversion from insomnia and a far better use of time than television.

Monday, January 10, 2005

dispatch from boston

My flight was five hours delayed, and, by the time I got to my room, I could not hit the "In-Room Dining" button on the phone fast enough. Where else does one get the opportunity to spend $25 on a late-night snack?

Which, incidentally, isn't even the most egregious waste of money on food I have made this week. Earlier this week I ate at the Madison restaurant Firefly, where I got a lo mein dish that tasted exactly like one of the offerings in the Ethnic Gourmet line of microwaveable meals (and, believe me, I know my microwaveables). This after a crab rangoon appetizer that was unambiguously inferior to the crab rangoon you would get off any rearguard Chinese buffet. The Firefly meal was probably about $25 for me, as well, and it left me feeling vaguely poisoned afterward.

Anyway, I'm all set up here in my hotel room in Cambridge. I'm here until Wednesday, when I fly to Ann Arbor for a couple of days. Then it's back to Madison for the weekend, and then three days in Berkeley. Yes, this would be a lot of traveling, especially for someone who really doesn't like to travel. And somewhere in here I also have to get my graduate methods course (upgrade to version 4.0) ready for the upcoming semester.

It's about time someone outed Firefly as having subpar food. I went there once and ordered a Thai iced tea; I got cofeehouse chai. When I thought that the server had just misunderstood me, I said, "Oh, you know, I think I ordered Thai iced tea? This tastes like chai? ..." And she goes, "Yeah... they're the same thing here."